300 THE " LOESS " FORMATION. 



enormous accumulations. These liilly ranges, or "loess," 

 which, from a distance, closely resemble the u})per por- 

 tion of the extraordinary table-topped mountains, 

 Kukenam and Roraima of the Merume range in the 

 interior of British Guiana, have no horizontal sub- 

 division, but are intersected vertically by precipitous 

 winding clefts forming terraces on either side, which 

 the inhabitants utilize for the construction of their 

 dwellings, invisible to the ordinary traveller above ; 

 moreover, these narrow defiles furnish them with hollow 

 subways of a most intricate kind, and exceedingly 

 useful during disturbed times. 



I must now continue my route to the "City Temple," 

 one of the largest, and fitted up like the others with 

 squinting gilt figures. This place of Taouist worship 

 was principally frequented by women, who, on the pave- 

 ment, marked out in certain mystic lines, threw their 

 horoscope by means of two pieces of wood, cocoanut or 

 Joss-sticks, according to some magic rule ; whilst the 

 approach to the altar was crowded by charm writers 

 and fortune-tellers. 



There are besides a great many other temples and 

 Joss houses, mostly gloomy-looking places. In one of 

 them the lower orders were in the habit of presenting 

 a sacrifice to a serpent, which used to creep lazily upon 



